Here's how old Mark and Jeremy are in Peep Show. Innovative, relatable and hilarious, Peep Show is a modern classic in the world of British comedy. Premiering in 2003, Peep Show ran for 9 seasons and made stars of its two leading men, David Mitchell as Mark Corrigan and Robert Webb as Jeremy Usborne, known to his friends (all two of them) as Jez. Peep Show comes with the unique gimmick of being filmed almost entirely through point-of-view shots, putting the viewer directly into the cringe-filled lives of Mark and Jeremy.
Friends and flatmates they may be, but Mark and Jez are polar opposite personalities. Where Jez is the free-spirited, irresponsible party animal, Mark is the bookish adult who specializes in history and social awkwardness. Both men are dysfunctional in their own way, and their relationship sustains Peep Show for the entirety of its run. After first meeting while studying at college, Mark and Jez develop a symbiotic pairing, and it's never clear whether they hold each other back, or support each other through the ups and downs of life inside a British sitcom.
Running for over a decade, Peep Show follows Mark and Jez through a significant chunk of their adult lives. Since they met at university, it can be assumed that Mark and Jeremy are the same age, and Peep Show's timeline is more or less consistent with the years each season was released. Peep Show season 4 sees Mark attending a school reunion for the "Class of '91." By the structure of the British education system, this means Mark would've been 16 in 1991, going on to study for 2 years in Sixth Form before attending university at 18. This fits with Peep Show season 5, in which Mark is seen wearing an old college t-shirt that reads "Dartmouth University Backgammon Club 1996." Mark would've started university in 1993 (he's not the type to take a gap year), making 1996 his final year of study at age 21. If Peep Show season 1 is set in 2002, when filming took place, this would make Mark and Jeremy 27/28-years-old as the series begins.
Other snippets of dialogue back up this approximation. In Peep Show season 5, Jeremy's mother's boyfriend says "you're, what, 35?" to Jez, who promptly tells Martin to "f**k off" in disgust. Using the above dates, Jeremy would've only been around 32 at this point. Furthermore, when Peep Show's final season aired in 2015, a full 12 years after the premiere, the last episode was centered around Jeremy's 40th birthday party. The ages of Mark and Jez are fairly close to their actors, with David Mitchell 29-years-old when Peep Show debuted in the UK, and Robert Webb slightly older at 31.
The slight fly in Peep Show's ointment comes due to the gaps between seasons. Although the Peep Show timeline essentially follows the real world (there are references to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the UK's 5p charge on plastic bags), the gaps between seasons were longer in real life than in the story. For example, 3 years passed between Peep Show seasons 8 and 9, but when season 9 begins, Jeremy claims he hasn't seen Mark in 6 months, suggesting a much shorter passage of time. Although Mark and Jez's ages in Peep Show may not add up entirely, their years are vague enough so as to not distract from the comedy. At its heart, Peep Show is about a pair of below-average 30-somethings in modern day Britain, struggling to navigate the ordinary perils that adult life brings, such as getting married out of spite, eating a dog and urinating on wedding guests.
